August 28, 2000
Jail sentence was 'miracle' to set him free
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___MOUNT VERNON--The birth of Mission Mount Vernon and the rebirth of Van Patton have the same genesis--the Franklin County Courthouse.
___Patton had been brought before Judge Wayne Foster on charges of driving while intoxicated. Foster gave him 90 days in jail and an $800 fine.
___Patton's not sure why this time in jail began a change in his life--he had spent many other stints locked up--but he feels certain that day in the courtroom was the beginning.
___Not that it seemed that way when it happened in 1988.
___"His secretary has since then told me that she had seen him leave the courtroom mad before but never as mad as he was after he had seen me that day," Patton explained. "I don't remember exactly what I said, but I know it wasn't nice, because I wasn't a nice person. I had no fear of consequences, so I just said whatever I wanted."
___Now Patton and Foster drink coffee together just about every morning. Patton said it was no mistake he was sent to Foster's courtroom that day 12 years ago. Rather, it was a miracle straight from the hand of God.
___"For God to take one of the best guys in this world and one of the worst and put them together is just a miracle," Patton said. "Now we're like brothers. We talk like brothers, and sometimes we argue like brothers."
___Patton said there is no doubt in his mind that he was one of the meanest people around. "When people saw me coming down the street, they went to the other side. I would hurt you."
___He's not just talking tough either. He already had spent a term in a state prison in Ohio for attempted murder and another stint in a federal prison after an attempt to break up a miners' union in Kentucky had resulted in a shootout with law enforcement officials.
___"My full-time job was working for Satan, but not anymore," he testified.
___Shortly after those three months in jail, Patton had a gun and a bottle of liquor and was ready to kill himself. But God had other plans, he now believes.
___"The Lord said to me, 'I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out of it when I'm ready, but I'm not through with you yet,'" he recalled.
___Patton told his wife, Lynn, he was going to a rehabilitation center and he was going to quit drinking. She was skeptical; she'd heard it all before. But it was different this time. While at the rehabilitation center, he spent long periods in prayer.
___"I had a pain deep inside. Not like I had been whipped or shot, but a pain you can't take anything for. There's not enough drugs or alcohol to kill it," he said. "The doctors had been telling me that I had mental problems and homicidal tendencies, but I know now that the only thing that was wrong with me was that I was lost.
___"I told God one day: 'I'm no good to my family, I'm no good to myself, but most of all I'm no good to you. If you'll take away this pain, I'll do anything for you.' When I said I'd do anything, I sure didn't know it was going to mean this."
___Today, Patton is bivocational pastor of Mission Mount Vernon, begun as a ministry of First Baptist Church in 1997.
___Faith plays a key role in every part of the mission's story, but especially in how the mission came to its current property. The vision began as Patton was driving home some of the kids who had attended the church.
___"We were driving along and all of sudden I stopped the van. The kids said, 'Brother Van, why are we stopped?' and I told them, 'Right there on that hill is where God wants his church.'"
___Evangelist John David Crow came to Mount Vernon, and he and Patton prayerwalked over the entirety of the property, "giving it to God," he explained.
___When Patton called the owners, however, they were not interested in selling the two acres the hill occupied without the rest of the parcel. "I told them, 'OK, but God wants that land,'" Patton remembered.
___He didn't say any more about it, and "just left it to God." A couple of months later, the real estate agent called Patton and told him he could buy the hill and the owners of the property would give the church the remaining five acres.
___Helen Carr has been a member of the First Baptist Church committee for the mission since it began to meet in 1985. She believes the 12 years of work that proceeded the mission's opening are now bearing fruit.
___"When you start a new work, there are some challenges there, but one of these days that church on the hill will be a beacon to all to come and meet Jesus," she said.
___The mission averages only about 30 in attendance each Sunday, but 19 new believers have been baptized since October. It also is home to a Girl Scout troop, drug and alcohol counseling and Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action groups.
___One of the mission's other roles is as the community food bank. Patton says the mission supplies the needs of seven to eight families "on a slow week."
___Patton makes sure all the food given to those families is quality merchandise.
___"God doesn't have second-class citizens," he said. "There is no reason why these people should have to take what somebody else doesn't want. We only give them name-brand merchandise.
___"It's the same thing with Sunday School literature. These people deserve better than what some other church had left over two or three years ago. God gave his people the Promised Land. Why should these people be any different because they happen to live in the housing authority?" Patton asked.
___A lot of people share Patton's vision, and almost everything in the mission has been donated--from the copier to the freezer to the mural on the baptistry wall.
___The people who come to the mission for help get a lot more than food, Carr asserted.
___"The ministry there is helping people with their physical needs, but their spiritual ones too. A lot of people come in there down on their luck, but they feel a lot better when they leave," she said.
___With his own hands, Patton built the 4,800-square-foot building that includes a kitchen, dining area, education space and sanctuary. It wasn't hard, he said, because it was a labor of love.
___That place has become a haven for him.
___"A lot of times, when it's just me, I'll come in here and sit in these pews and read my Bible or sometimes just pray. If ever I was in a place where I knew God was, this is it."
___The church also is a place of victory. One of Patton's favorite success stories is his 12-year-old "junior deacon," Tevin.
___"Really he's the only deacon we got," Patton said. "If these doors are open, he's here; he couldn't be any more faithful. He takes the offering for us. The first week he did it, he got to the front, looked in the plate and went back and did it again. He didn't think we got enough."
___Even more impressive is that Tevin recently told him, "I want to preach God's word like you, Brother Van."
___Judge Foster, who sometimes refers people who come through his court to Patton, said Patton has made a big impact on people, many he will never know about.
___"The people who come through here have problems I've never had and can't completely understand, but because of Van's background, he can," the judge said. "There's a lot of difference between knowing about something and having lived it."
___Pepper Puryear, pastor of First Baptist Church, also sees the value of the mission.
___"We saw there was a segment of the community we weren't reaching because of economic or social barriers," Puryear said. "We could get them to visit, but we couldn't get them to come back on a regular basis. Mission Mount Vernon has provided another place for people to worship, and Van has been the perfect fit to lead that congregation."
___The neighborhood from which most of the mission's congregation comes is a transient one, with many people only living there a short time.
___"That makes his church transient, but he's giving them a first contact that moves them closer to God," Foster said. "And because they've had a good experience with a church and a good experience with a pastor, they might be more likely to find a church when they move."
___The mission has set a good example for the whole church, Puryear said.
___"We've been able to see missions first hand. When people want to know where the money for the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions goes, I tell them part of it comes right back here to Mission Mount Vernon."
___To prepare himself to minister to his congregation better, Patton is beginning seminary training this fall at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
___"I know I probably won't be an 'A' student, but I'll learn what God wants me to. I'll sure know more than when I started," he said.
___Regardless, he's already learned that God can redeem his messed up life to proclaim a message.
___"He's taken one of the orneriest people of the world and made me the shepherd of this church on this hill. Our God isn't one that wants any of his children to go to hell. He loves us, all of us, and that's what I preach to the people who come to this church."
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